NWP also say shoplifting in town is down around 5%, although one rep of a town shop says it ‘does not feel like a 5% reduction’ to them.

You can view our last 500 tweets in our Twitter Archive by clicking here.

News

Town centre crime figures are down with an overall decrease of 19.5% of overall crime year to date (with the year starting from April) the Town Centre Forum was told this morning.

Shoplifting is down a massive 35.9% which in real terms means 127 less offences.

Other crime such as criminal damage and arson are also down.

The police explained they were currently targeting mobile phone thefts and handbag thefts of an evening by educating people going out and working with licensed premises. This also involved the use of ‘chelsea clips’, small clips that attach to tables to hang bags from, rather than have them placed on the floor.

An update was also provided on NightSafe, with progress being made with people being banned from the town centre at night. One example was given of someone seen ‘dipping’ bags in Liquid & Envy nightclub. Another example was CCTV picking up two people on camera who had a ban, which then led to them being removed from the town centre.

Antisocial behaviour is down by 12.4% which mainly revolves around issuing “Section 27’s” This is where a person gets a notice and is excluded from an area for 48hrs.

We have made that figure our headline, as it was stated in the meeting ‘make sure the Leader has that number’

Crime as a whole in the county is down 9.1% which is really a meaningless figure without context so it is very pleasing to report that in reality means around 500 less victims of crime!